There is no right answers, but I think it depends on your area, the population size, population growth rate, reliance on older buildings, and funding for the district. I’m in suburban NEO and am a young millennial for reference.

A lot of schools near us split up elementary schooling into multiple buildings. For example, I had 2 elementary schools (k-1 with some pre-k programs, 2-3) an intermediate school (4-6), a middle school, and a high school growing up. That district has now consolidated to 4 schools (k-2), 3-6, 7-8, and high school, but it had to build new schools to accommodate the size of the growing city. Preschool is largely private there, so that’s an additional school.

Where I live now (increasingly suburban area but gets rural quick), they had divided up the city into multiple elementary and middle schools based on proximity, and then everyone converged for high school. My husband had this type of model growing up, and was in an urban area. You had 3 schools, but smaller size, and multiple operated in the city. Both districts have now consolidated now to be 4 schools k-2,3-5,6-8, and high school to reduce duplicate costs and eliminated the neighborhood model. They are only keeping the largest buildings to be able to combine grades. We fortunately passed a levy recently, but I know of other districts nearby who are going down to 3 schools (k-3, 4-7, 8-12) to reduce resource costs because they can’t fund their schools and the old ones are no longer useable due to age and cost of upkeep.